Shorter College Installs Emergency Warning System
Recently crews installed a new emergency warning system at Shorter College, which gives campus officials the ability to alert and inform the entire campus at once should a crisis situation develop.
The Student Alert Mass Notification System offers siren alerts as well as pre-recorded and live-voice announcement capabilities. The siren can be utilized in case of severe weather. Other emergency announcements would be made through a pole-mounted speaker system located near the heart of the college’s Rome campus. Repeater systems inside outlying campus buildings will spread the alerts to facilities such as the Professional Studies Center located at 408 Shorter Ave. and the Art House located on Horseleg Creek Road.
The custom-built emergency warning system is battery operated so that it will remain operational should the electrical power on the campus fail. The system is a product of Whelan Engineering Co., Inc., and is designed specifically for college and university use.
“The Whelan emergency warning system is an important piece of our efforts to offer a safe campus environment,” said Shorter College President Dr. Harold E. Newman. “Having the ability to sound a siren when a tornado warning is issued or to make a campus-wide announcement greatly enhances our ability to help keep students, faculty and staff safe.”
The emergency warning system represents a $40,000 investment by the college. The need for an emergency alert system was identified as part of the recent review of the college’s Crisis Response Plan, Dr. Newman added. Also from that review, a Crisis Response Manual has been created that will be used as a training manual to enable faculty, staff and students to know how to respond in a variety of emergency situations.
This new emergency warning system will work hand-in-hand with the existing Shorter2U text message and e-mail notification system to keep the campus community informed in the event of an emergency, according to Dawn Tolbert, the college’s director of institutional relations, who chaired the Crisis Plan Review committee.
The Shorter2U system was launched in November 2007 and allows the college to send urgent news to students, faculty and staff who register for the service, Tolbert said. Shorter’s system can be utilized to provide alerts regarding emergency situations, severe weather advisories and school closings. Shorter2U is powered by e2Campus, a leading mass-notification system for colleges and universities. It enables school officials to send alerts directly to registered subscribers’ email accounts and mobile phones via SMS text messages. All students, faculty and staff at Shorter’s campuses in Rome, Lawrenceville, North Atlanta and Riverdale are encouraged to register for the Shorter2U service.
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